Marshall’s jacket slid from her shoulders and pooled around her waist.
The leather smelled like him—clean, earthy, threaded with cinnamon and something steady underneath it all. She curled her fingers into the collar before she could stop herself.
She sat up more fully and turned, instinctively searching for him in the space. Cleo let out a meow of distress at being disturbed. A pang of joy filled her as she pulled Cleo into herarms. She buried her cheek in Cleo’s soft fur as her eyes found Marshall.
He sat on the far end of the couch, leaning forward, forearms braced on his knees. His profile was sharp in the shifting light—tired and unshaven, his eyes fixed on the screen though she wondered how much he was really seeing.
The TV volume was muted, but she recognized breaking news coverage when she saw it. A broken window zoomed in on from far away. Armed men in tactical gear patrolling outside a building while police vehicles flashed blue lights in the blurry foreground. A banner across the bottom of the screen read PRESIDENT ATTACKED IN GENEVA. Then, the closed captions in stark black boxes. SOURCES SAY ABORTED RUSSIAN MISSILE STRIKE then COINCIDED WITH THE ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT.
“What happened?” she asked in horror. “Is President Coulter okay?”
Marshall turned his head slightly, eyes softening when they landed on her. He inhaled deeply, shaking his head. “We don’t know yet. We had a team over there, but intel is spotty. I haven’t heard from Jackson yet. Coulter is stable...Hasn’t hit the news yet, but apparently, he talked to the First Lady. My boss, Ross, is married to Poppy’s sister, Andi. We got the friends and family discount on the intel.”
Another clip rolled, this time of a battleship. Then, analysts gesturing over satellite overlays. Accusations and denials scrolling in endless loops.
Tension. Escalation. Exactly what the Syndicate wanted.
“Every talking head on every network is speculating about World War III,” Marshall said solemnly.
She pulled the jacket around herself again, suddenly cold. What had Sidarov said?Tonight was a very important night.
“You should be asleep,” she said gently.
He stood up and moved to sit at her side. “Could say the same to you.”
As he walked across the room, his gaze searched her face like he was cataloging every sign of distress.
She shifted upright, tucking her knees under the jacket to make room for him next to her. Cleo jumped down and gave a dramatic swish of her tail before settling into Marshall’s vacated seat. “You watched over me all night.”
His jaw tightened. “Didn’t want you to wake up alone.”
“You got Cleo for me?”
“That was Miranda,” he countered.
Marshall turned back to the TV for a moment, though the tension in his shoulders said he wasn’t really absorbing the footage anymore. His thoughts were elsewhere—pulled taut between the mission, his friends on the other side of the world, and her.
Norah’s heart squeezed.
“You should rest,” she whispered.
“I will. Just . . . needed to make sure you were okay.”
Her heartbeat stumbled. She pulled the jacket tighter around herself, as if it could shield her from the weight of what she wanted to say.
For a long moment, the only sound was the soft hum of the building’s ventilation system.
She cleared her throat again, trying to will the heat out of her cheeks. “So...um...have you been watching the news this whole time?” she asked, voice soft but steadying.
“Mostly.” He rubbed the back of his neck, the movement slow. “Trying to see if anything connected back to Sidarov. Or the Syndicate. Or us.”
“And?”
His silence was answer enough.
She let her eyes drift back to the screen. The same broken window. The same screenshots of the skyline. Poorly generated renderings of a missile over a map of Europe.
She watched him, noticing how his hands were clasped loosely but his knuckles were white. He always carried tension like a silent alarm.
